Summer Continues On

Summer is in full swing in the Morgan household and we are finally settling into our routine. This week brought a couple of fun activities into the schedule. Monday, Jake got to take part in a bike ride with Adaptive Adventures and the Children's Hospital Sports Program. Adaptive Adventures offers a wide variety of activities (biking, kayaking, sailing, rock climbing, water skiing) to people of all ages with disabilities. For this event, they partnered with Children's and brought their trailer full of kid-sized adaptive bikes to a park on the west side of town. We were really excited for him to check out some other options in adaptive bikes. Last August when we were leaving the hospital, we decided not to look into getting him an adaptive bike since we figured we would only need it for a few months and by this summer he'd be back on his regular bike. A standard two wheeler just isn't an option yet due to his balance issues and not being able to hold onto the handle bars for very long with his left hand. They had him try a recumbent bike which he thought was pretty cool looking. The bike required him to really use both legs and figure out the push/pull motion with the left leg. It was good because he couldn't let the right leg do all the work. That first lap you could see how hard he was concentrating on the leg movements as well as steering. By the second lap, he had it down and was going great, but he was also really tired so we called it a day. A big bonus for me was finding out about Adaptive Adventures and everything they offer. I'm still trying to learn about all the different resources out there. We're hoping to hook up with them on another ride and possibly some other events later this summer. We still are not sure if we're going to look into getting him a bike, but this is a great way for him to get a feel for one and be around other people using adaptive equipment.

Jake continues to work really hard in PT. In addition to the strength training, they are having him walk without his leg brace. (He still has the support inside his shoe for his ankle). We've often walked short distances without it, from the bedroom to the bathroom or as part of home exercises, but this is the most he's walked without the whole brace since the hospital. He walked across the gym, did six minutes on treadmill and back. Granted, it was all pretty slow, but he was able to do it and his ankle wasn't rolling. On Friday, he even walked without his brace while being pulled from the back with a resistance band. Pretty exciting to see.

The boys also fit in some fun stuff this week. They spent Tuesday with my Mom and Dad and went to Golden. We had some pool time midweek and they got to hangout with friends and have a sleepover. All in all a good week!